time to over look the community collections!

Stratics Veteran

I have a treasure hunter that I sometimes use and after completing the hunt I give the maps in for points. However it is all ludicrous. To get the top item valued at 800 000 points you need to give in 40 000 lvl 6 maps (lvl 6 maps are valued at 20 points each). You can donate gold to speed things up but any how it is still insane in my opinion.

If you like to complete the maps before handing them in it becomes a bit of problem. For me it takes 20-30 min to complete one lvl 6 map (depends on spawn) so 20 min * 40 000 = 800 000 min. 800 000 min is 1333,33 hours and in days that amounts to 555,55 days. 555 days without sleep ,food, toilet or anything else you need to do to survive. Perhaps you can do all that during server down.

Stratics Veteran

Everyone else apparently does. The same few guys are scripting turn-ins to the Mace & Shield collector day in and day out on my shard. They recall around to NPC vendors, buy out their battle axes and then recall back to the library and turn in a bag full of axes in about 10 seconds total or less, then they are off again. Recall out, recall in, recall out, recall in. You could almost set a watch by it.

Stratics Veteran

yup the turn ins could of been the perfect trap to get rid of some of the greatest dirtbags in the game. Even if you could drag a GM to the location and tell them to observe..........still have to explain it to them in 200 words or less and cross your fingers. And with every shard flooded with rewards from them they are only worth doing if you script. The time vs reward is lost with those that don't do the time.

It is why UO has become so stale. Why do a trurn in when you can farm swoop and buy one from the hacks in less time.

I don't know, why do people need to passive-aggressively over-generalize all the time? See what I did, I made fun of you trying to say people ask for something all the time, when in fact the OP asked about a specific problem and gave a detailed example.

And, based on those calculations, I agree that it is unrealistic for anyone to actually get & turn in that many maps. If the task at hand cannot be accomplished, then it should be fixed.

Stratics Veteran

Community collections are definitely dated. We don't need another system that was valid for 1-2 years then ignored until eventually becoming unused. We need a makeover for this system instead of something new.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

The point isn't the work involved, but that its a near impossibility to attain the rewards with the current turn-in points.

Click to expand...

It's not impossible. Another poster mentioned the key. Download a program to do it for you. We can argue but if anyone believe even half of the current must have CC items weren't obtained by them they just don't want to face the truth.

The CC have been disfunctional since the very beginning. The point value of items are ridiculous. The fact the items haven't changed since it's inception are as well.

This is just another beautiful example of UO's ability to create a great game concept and then make it worthless with poor implementation and near zero follow up. *applauds*

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

I think the developers mentioned creating a donation bag and allowing the use of commodity deeds. Hopefully they will address the point system at some point too. And FYI, you can use a UO Assist macro to donate items. Once you get it set up, it works pretty well.

Stratics Veteran

Uhm, thats not an opinion, these are facts. Unless of course you script or buy them with gold/ebay.

Other than that, they should be not too hard to obtain, 1 person can easily need maybe 5-10 of an item, so what good is it if it takes 6 months to get one, thats 30-60 months just to get that one item type, then on to the next 10 item types you need.

Stratics VeteranSupporter

Though from the loot you'd recieve from the level 6 spawn 40K*1000gp you should have 40 mil to spend on CC items. But I would suspect that it would be closer to 400 mil if you lucked out and got 1 map in 10 kills...

Ok...sorry you dont like my question...but thanks for the snarky response.

So just for you I'll rephrase. And add a couple.

Why is it so wrong to have a particular in game quest take a long time to complete?

Is it feeling impatient?

Do you think only players should decide the appropriate amount of time a quest takes and not the game designer?

Is there some written gaming standard somewhere on how long a quest should take?

Carjacker don't feel like you really have to reply. I have some questions I feel are valid. And would like to know how this OP feels?

Click to expand...

Did you even ready the OP's analysis? 555 days if you play 24 hours a day. Is it reasonable to wait a year and a half trying to get an item, doing nothing else (in game or otherwise)?

If you play 3 hours a day 7 days a week and do nothing else in game, that equates to about 12 YEARS. That's about as long as UO has been out, and certainly longer than community collections have been available. Would you like to dedicate all of your UO playing time, 3 hours a day, doing one thing (turning in maps)? No, this is not a matter of opinion, it is patently ridiculous. That's why people have suggested that scripting or gold are the only realistic way to get some of these items.

How about if you only dedicate 1 hour of your gaming time and play every other day instead. In that case will take you something like 72 YEARS to accomplish this goal. Anyone want to take a stab as to whether UO will be around in 72 years? I can say that there's a very good chance I will not be around in 72 years to settle this argument. Wonder if they will have any other items available in the game in the next 72 years that I might like to get...

I believe the major error in this statement is that the opp is using completed maps. For those that do not have a t-hunter, we have the option for turning in the maps instead of selling them. And I find it hard to believe that anyone is buying anything less than level 6 t-maps on a regular basis.

Stratics VeteranSupporter

I suppose you are right. If people want to take the longest road and then complain about it being a long journey...then more power to them.

I mean lets just define the parameters narrow enough to eliminate all possible other creative solutions to a game problem. Then just expect its too hard of a problem and well blame it on EA as a screw up and obviously it needs to be addressed!

Wow...Seriously?

Some possible creative solutions:

1. Open up the narrow definition of how to complete the librqary collection task.
2. Use fast map spawning creatures like the Dark Guardians in Doom and not just limit yourself to level 6 maps. (Spawn 2 Dark Lord for every person in room).
3. Think of this collection as a group event and not necessarily as a solo event that is impossible ...use friends and guild members to get more of the necessary resources quicker. Don't assume every in game quest is meant to be a solo quest. Many are not.
4. Ask other thieves for their completed maps or buy maps from people in game who have no use for them. Set up a collection point of your own.
5. Be willing to pay some gold towards an item to drastically speed up point accumulation.

These are just a few possible ideas.

As I recall at the time these quests were launched, many people had the entire set of different glasses from all the library collections in days. Not weeks nor even months.

Rather than deeming everything broken, lets maybe as players consider finding some creative solutions to the hand we are dealt.

Stratics Veteran

As Mr Picus at the office pointed out I did not publish any figures of time to acquire 40k of lvl 6 maps. That is another story in it self and on its own it is easily to work out that attaining 40 000 lvl 6 maps is not something you do over a weekend.

In my opinion it is very strange to design something in game, were the only possible way to get the top prize is through using scripting programs, like some people are claiming. I dont mind quest and other such in game activities to be difficult and time consuming but there must be a resonable chance for someone to succeed. At the moment I dont see how any player just using legal software can achieve this. It would be nice to see some kind of modification in the future and as I have seen not only me but others think this is just cause.

Stratics VeteranSupporter

Now you have specific knowledge of exactly how people obtained them?
I don't remember ever seeing those statistics released? Unless of courses its just your opinion what you THINK happened.

Also I dont remember the OP discussing anything about scripting and it being a problem in his original post. So that would make your comments about scripting also useless to the OP's specific question.

My solutions did specifically address what a treasure hunter could do to obtain more points faster and in less time than he proposed.

Stratics Veteran

No one said you should script, but I said that the lousy set up of the community collections encourage scripting and that is what most are doing, either for obtaining what they need to turn in, to actually turn it in or both.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

The cost in gold to buy these is just as ridiculous as the amount of items needed to donate them. The Devs actually brought about the need to script the items, by setting the gold amount so high. 40,000 level 6 Tmaps couldn't be more insulting...

Stratics is the oldest continually running MMORPG Fansite on the Internet. Founded in 1997 Stratics has served the Ultima Online Community for 18 years. We strive to provide the most complete social experience for Ultima Online players.